Eighty seven percent of American jewellery retailers reported a rise in silver jewellery sales in 2010, according to a survey commissioned by the Silver Institute’s Silver Promotion Service (SPS).
Fifty two percent of the surveyed retailers said their silver jewellery sales increased between 11 and 25 percent from 2009 to 2010 while 28 percent saw their sales increase over 25 percent during the same period.
The survey of 340 retail jewellers representing approximately 4000 stores was conducted by The Nielsen Company and National Jeweller.
According to the SPS, the retailers reported that silver jewellery gave them the ‘best’ maintained margin of 57 percent, followed by diamond jewellery (20 percent), bridal jewellery (15 percent) gold jewellery (four percent) and platinum jewellery (4 percent).
The survey, also found that silver jewellery generated an average 36 percent of unit volume and 28 percent of dollar volume.
SPS director Michael Barlerin said the non-profit association was “exceedingly gratified by the data that so strongly affirmed what we already knew on an anecdotal basis”.
“What was somewhat of a surprise was not just silver’s absolute growth and performance ratings, but that in all major categories the 2010 results exceeded the corresponding record numbers from 2009,” he said.
Silver Institute executive director Michael DiRienzo concluded that based on retailer feedback and the momentum behind silver jewellery, “2011 promises to be another sterling year for jewellers”.
